The History of the Hobbit
Page 27
on], for fear of meeting something unexpected and unpleasant, and he noticed that Balin was looking straight at him without noticing him. ‘I will give them all a surprise’ he thought. He crawled into the bushes at the edge of the dell, and listened. Bladorthin was talking, and so were the dwarves: they were discussing all that happened to them in the goblin-tunnels, arguing, and wondering, and debating what they should do now. Bladorthin was saying they couldn’t possibly leave Mr Baggins in the hands of the goblins without trying to find out if he was dead, or alive, and without trying to rescue him if they could.
‘After all he is my friend’ said the wizard, ‘and not a bad little chap. I feel responsible for him. I can’t think how you came to lose him’. The dwarves agreed, but they grumbled. They [didn’t ca[re to] >] wanted to know why he had ever been brought at all, why he couldn’t stick to his friends and come along with them, and said he had been more trouble than use so far – especially if they had got to go back into those abominable tunnels to look for him: they didn’t like that at all.TN2
The wizard spoke
‘You would have dropped him’ said Bombur ‘if somebody suddenly grabbed you from behind in the dark, tripped up your feet, and kicked you in the back’.
‘Why didn’t you pick him up again?’
‘Good heavens – can you ask! Goblins fighting and biting in the dark, everybody falling over things, and hitting one another. You nearly chopped off my head with Glamdring, and Gandalf was stabbing here and there with Orcrist. All of a sudden [he >] you gave one of your blinding flashes, we saw the goblins running back yelping – and you shouted “follow me everybody”. Everybody followed, or so we thought; and we never had time to stop and count ourselves till we came to the lower gate, and found it open [> dashed into the gate-guards, drove them helter-skelter and rushed out]. And here we are – without the burglar, confusticate him!’
‘And here’s the burglar’ said Bilbo stepping down into the middle of them and taking off the ring. Bless me, how they jumped. Then they shouted with surprise and [with a certain>]TN4 delight. Bladorthin was as surprised [> astonished] as any of them, and probably more pleased than all: but he called to Balin and told him what he thought of a look-out man that let people walk right into them without warning like that. It’s a fact that Bilbo’s reputation went up [even >] a very great deal with themTN5 after that. If they had doubted before whether he was really a first-class burglar, they didn’t doubt it any longer. Balin was very puzzled indeed, and they all said it was a very clever bit of work. Indeed Bilbo was so pleased with their praise that he just chuckled inside and said nothing whatever about the ring; and when they kept on asking him how he did it he said ‘Oh, just crept along you know – carefully and quietly’. ‘Well, it’s the first time [even] a mouse has crept along quietly & carefully under my nose in broad daylight and not been spotted’ said Balin ‘and I take off my hood to you’ which he did. ‘Balin at your service’ he said.
‘Bilbo at yours’ said Mr Baggins.
Then they wanted to know all about his adventures since they lost him; and he sat down and told them everything – about bumping his head when he fell off Bombur’s back, and coming to himself all alone in the dark (but he didn’t mention finding the ring – ‘not just now’ he thought). Then he described the horrible Gollum and the competition more or less how it happened, except that he pretended his pocket had been empty [> didn’t say what had been in his pocket which Gollum couldn’t guess, nor did he say what Gollum’s lost present was].TN6
‘And then I couldn’t think of any other question with him sitting beside me’ he said. ‘So I said “what’s in my pocket?” And he couldn’t guess [with >] in three times. So I asked for my present, and he went to look for it, and couldn’t find it. So I said “very well help [added: me] to get out of this nasty place”. “Very well” he said and he showed me the passage to the gate. “Goodbye” he [> I] said, and I went on down’.
‘What about the guards?’ they asked ‘Weren’t there any?’
‘O yes lots of them, but I dodged ’em. I got stuck in the door, which was only open a crack, and I nearly got caught. In fact I lost lots of buttons’ he said looking sadly at his coat and waistcoat ‘but I managed to squeeze through in time – and here I am’.
The dwarves looked at him quite respectfully when he talked about dodging the guards and squeezing through, as if it wasn’t very difficult or very alarming.
‘What did I tell you?’ said Bladorthin. ‘Mr Baggins has more about him than you’d guess.’ Bilbo didn’t quite know what the wizard meant by that, but he smiled.
Then he had a few questions of his own to ask, for if Bladorthin had explained it all by now to the dwarves, he hadn’t heard how the wizard had turned up again, or where they had come to now.
So Bladorthin explained that the goblins’ presence [> the presence in the mountains of bad wicked goblins] was well known to Elrond.TN7 But their main gate [was >] came out on a different pass to the one they had been following, a seemingly much easier road, and therefore one people more often followed (and got caught if they were anywhere near the gates at night-fall). They [can’t >] couldn’t have made that [new] entrance high up in the mountains almost at the top of the pass (which had [been] supposed to be safe) until quite recently: nobody knew about it before.
‘I shall have to see if we can’t find a more decent giantTN8 to block it up’ said Bladorthin ‘or soon there will be no getting over these mountains at all’. Still as soon as the wizard heard Bilbo’s yell he guessed what had happened.TN9 In the flash [where >] which killed the goblins who were grabbing him, he had nipped inside the crack just before it snapped to. He followed after the drivers and prisoners right to the edge of the great hall, and there he sat down and worked up the best magic he could in the shadows. ‘A very ticklish business’ he said, ‘touch and go it was’. But of course Bladorthin had made a special study of [fire and >] bewitchments with fire and lights ([you remember >] even Bilbo had never forgotten the magic fireworks at Old Took’s mid-summer eve parties, as you probably remember). The rest we all know – except that Bladorthin knew about the goblin’s back-gate; as a matter of fact anybody who knew anything about [these parts >] this part of the mountains was well aware of it, but it took a wizard to keep his head in the tunnels and guide them in the right direction.
‘They made that gate ages ago’ he said ‘partly [to >] for a way of escape, if they needed it; partly as a way out into the Lands Beyond where they come in the dark and do a lot of damage. They guard it always, and no one has ever managed yet to block it up. They will guard it doubly after this’ he laughed.TN10 ‘We must be getting on’ he said. ‘They will be out after us in hundreds [before >] when night comes on, and already it is getting teatimish.TN11 They can smell our footsteps for [miles >] hours & hours after we have passed, and we must be miles on before dark. There will be a bit of moon, if it keeps fine, and that is lucky. Not that they mind the moon much, but we shall be able to see a bit better.’
‘O yes’ he said in answer to more questions from the hobbit ‘you lose track of time inside goblins’ tunnels. We were several days inside, and went miles & miles. We have come down through the heart of the mountains, and are right out on the other side. But we are not at the point where our pass would have brought us to; we are too far to the SouthTN12 – and we have some awkward country ahead. We are still pretty high up. Let’s get on’.
‘I am so dreadfully hungry’ said Bilbo, who suddenly remembered [> realized] he had been days inside the goblins’ places, and had never had more than two biscuits which he had kept in his pocket. Just think of it for a hobbit. He certainly was breaking his old habits, all to bits; but it made his tummy feel horribly empty, and his legs all wobbly n
ow the [added: worst] excitement was over.
‘Can’t help it’ said Bladorthin ‘– unless you like to go back and ask the goblins nicely to let you have your pony and your luggage’.
‘O No, no, certainly not’ said Bilbo.
‘Very well then, we must just trudge on, or we shall be made into supper which will be worse than having none ourselves.’
The blackberries were still in flower, so Bilbo looked in vain from side to side as they went along. [So <?were> >] Of course there weren’t any nuts yet, nor even hawthorn-berries either. He nibbled a bit of sorrel, found a wild strawberry or two, and had a drink from a littleTN13 mountain stream that crossed the path. It was better than nothing, but it didn’t do much good.
On they went. The bushes, and the short grass among the boulders, and the
The pine trees at the bottom saved them. They slid into the edge of a dark wood of them standing right up the slope and going on down down darker and darker into the valley. They caught hold of the trunks and stopped themselves, while the sliding stones went on down in front crashing among the trees and bounding among the branches until they came to rest far below, and all was quiet.
‘Well that has got us on a bit’ said Bladorthin ‘and [I would <?think>] even goblins tracking us will have a job to come down there quietly’.
‘I dare say’ said the dwarves [>Bombur],TN15 ‘but they won’t find it difficult to send stones bouncing down on our heads.’ They were rubbing their bruised legs and feet, and felt rather unhappy.
‘Very well let’s turn aside as soon as we can out of the path of the slide. Hurry up, look at the time.’ The sun had gone behind the mountains; already they were in darkening shadow here, though far away through the trees & over the tops of those growing lower down they could still see evening light on the plains beyond.
They went on now more easily, down the gentler slope of the great pine forest,TN16 picking out paths among the bracken (which was of course right high above Bilbo’s head), and marching along quiet as quiet over the pine-needle floors, while all the time the forest-gloom got deeper, and the forest-silence more still. There seemed no wind that evening to bring the sea-sighing noise [added: even] into the upper boughs.
‘Must we go any further?’ asked Bilbo when it was so dark that he could only just see Gandalf’s white beard wagging [in the >] by him, and so quiet he could hear their breathing like a loud noise. ‘My feet [> toes] are all bruised, and my legs ache; and my tummy is simply wagging like an empty sack’.
‘A bit further’ said Bladorthin.
After what seemed ever such a lot further, they came to an open ring where no trees grew. The moon was up, and was shining into the clearing – somehow it struck all of them, as not at all a nice place, although there was nothing wrong to see.
All of a sudden they heard a howl away down hill, a long shuddering howl.
It was answered by another away on [> to] the side [> right] and a good deal nearer to them; then by another not far [on >] away to the left. It was wolves, howling at the moon, wolves gathering together!
There were no wolves living near Mr Baggins’ hole at home, but he knew that noise. He had had it described to him. One of his cousins among the Tooks used to do it to frighten him – he had visited the forests in the north of Bilbo’s country and heard it there.TN17 To hear it out in the forest under the moon was too much for Bilbo; even magic-rings are not much use against wolves (and against probably very evil wolves, if they live under the shadow of goblin-infested mountains, in a country right on the edge of the wild and far into the unknown). Wolves of that sort smell keener than goblins, and don’t need to see you to find you!
‘What shall we do, what shall we do’ he cried. ‘Escaping goblins to be caught by wolves’ he said – and it became a proverb, though we now say ‘out of the frying pan into the fire’ in the same sort of uncomfortable situations.
‘Up the trees quick’ said Bladorthin, and they ran to the trees at the edge of the glade, and hunted for ones that had branches fairly low, or were slender enough to swarm up. They found them only just in time, and up they went, up as high as ever they dare trust the branches. You could almost have laughedTN18 to see the dwarves sitting up in the branches with their beards dangling down, like old gentlemen gone cracked and playing at being boys. Fili & Kili were right up a slender larch like a tall thin Christmas tree. Dori Nori Ori, Oin & Gloin were more comfortable in a big pine with branches even sticking out like the spokes of a wheel at intervals. Bifur Bofur Bombur and Gandalf were in another. Dwalin and Balin had swarmed up a tall slender fir with few branches, and were trying to find a comf[ortable] place to sit in the top bows among its thin greenery.
Bladorthin who was tallestTN19 had found a tree which the others couldn’t get into. A great big pine almost standing [> standing almost] at the edge of the ring. He was hidden in its branches, but you could see his eyes shining in the moon as he peeped out.
And Bilbo? He couldn’t get into any tree, and was scuttling about from trunk to trunk like a rabbit that has lost its hole and has a dog after it.
‘You’ve left the burglar behind again’ said Bifur to Bombur, looking down.
‘I can’t be always carrying burglars on my back’ said Bombur ‘down tunnels, and up trees. What do you think I am, a porter?’TN20
‘He’ll be eaten if we don’t do something’ said Gandalf, for there were howls all round them now, getting nearer and nearer. ‘Dori’ he called, for Dori was lowest down in the easiest tree and also was a decent fellow ‘give Mr Baggins a hand up’.
Dori really behaved very well; for Bilbo couldn’t reach his hand when he climbed to the bottom branches and hung his arm down as far as ever he could reach. So Dori climbed out of the tree, let Bilbo climb up and stand on his back. Just then wolves [<?came> >] trotted howling into the glade. All of a sudden there were hundreds of eyes looking at them. Still Dori didn’t let Bilbo down; he let him scramble off his shoulders into the branches, and then he jumped for the branches himself. Only just in time.
A wolf snapped at his cloak as he swung up and nearly got him. There were crowds of them all round the tree in a minute, yelping, and leaping up at the tree trunk, with eyes blazing and tongues hanging out. But even the wild [added: wicked] weorgs [> wargs]TN21 (for so the evil wolves [of >] beyond the edge of the unknown are called) can’t climb trees. So for a time they were safe. Luckily it was warm and not windy, for trees are not very comfortable to sit in for long (with wolves all round below waiting for you) at any time, and in the cold and the wind they can be perfectly miserable places.
Evidently the ring was a meeting place of the wolves. They left guards at the foot of Dori’s tree, and went snuffling about till they smelt out all the trees where the others were. These they guarded too; then all the rest went and sat (in hundreds it seemed) in a great circle in the glade. In the middle of their circle sat a great grey wolf. He spoke to them in the dreadful wolf-language of the wargs. Bladorthin may have understood it; Bilbo didn’t, but it sounded as if it was all about cruel and wicked things, and probably was. The other wargs in the circle would answer their grey chief every now and again altogether, and the horrible cry almost made the hobbit fall out [added: of] his pine-tree.
I will tell you what Bladorthin heard, though Bilbo didn’t understand it. The wargs and the goblins often helped one another in wicked deeds. Goblins do not usually venture very far away from their mountains, unless they are driven out, and are looking for new homes, or are marching to war (which I am glad
to say hasn’t happened for a long while). Sometimes they go on raids – especially to get slaves [> food or slaves] to work for them. Then they usually get the wargs’ help. Sometimes they ride on wolves like men do on horses.
It seemed that a goblin-raid had been planned for that very night. The wargs had come to meet goblins, and the goblins were late. (I expect [added: the reason was] the death of the Great Goblin and all the excitement caused by the dwarves, Bilbo, and the wizard for whom they were probably still hunting). In spite of the dangers of this far land bold men had lately been pushing up into it from the south again,TN22 and cutting down trees, and building themselves places to live in among the more pleasant woods farther down in the valleys away from the shadows of the hills, and along the river-shores. There were many of them and they were brave and well-armed and even the wargs dared not attack them if there were many together or in the bright day. But now they planned with the goblins’ help to attack some of the villages nearest to the mountains by night. If they did there would probably be no one left next day – except some few the goblins kept from the wolves and carried back as prisoners to their caves.
This was dreadful talk to listen to, not only from the thought of the danger to the brave woodmen and their wives and children, but also because of the position of the [dwarves and >] Bladorthin & his friends.
The wargs were angry and puzzled at finding them here in their very meeting place. They thought they were friends of the woodmen, who had come to spy on them, and would take news of their plans down into the valley – and then of course the war-horns would blow, and people would arm in all the villages, and the goblins and wargs would have to fight a fearful battle instead of capturing prisoners and devouring people waked suddenly from their sleep. So the wolves had no intention of going away and letting the people up the trees escape – at any rate not until morning. And long before that, they said, the goblin soldiers would be coming down from the mountains; and goblins can climb trees, or cut them down.